Just a Dance
by Brightmotor
Summary: TimmyTootie, Timmy finds himself going to the Sadie Hawkins dance with Tootie, but something awful happens. 4's done. story's done. only took a couple years. Added other ending I wrote for the story.
1. The Sadie Hawkins Dance

**disclaimer: **I don't own FOP or a blue chevy van. so if either of those hits your car, i'm not responsible.

Thanks to Liz for ruining my life in more than just 11 ways, and sincere thanks to The Killers, Smashing Pumpkins, and The Bloodhound Gang for something to listen to while i wrote this

* * *

A rich golden orange sun climbed up and over a tree covered hill. Its warm rays crept along the ground behind the hill until it struck the great white manor of the Buxaplenty family. Slowly the sun illuminated the rest of the quaint town of Dimmsdale.

In a middle class home in the middle of suburban Dimmsdale, dad greets the sun with sleepy eyes that squint in the early light. He finds his way to the coffee maker slowly, and pours himself a cup of steaming black coffee. From pot to mug the coffee falls and the occasional small drop flies off and lands on the counter. The steam rises and fills the kitchen atmosphere with the aroma of the most expensive roast in the coffee aisle.

Just upstairs, the sun peeks into the window of a bedroom and its rays fall on the back of little Timmy Turner's head.

"EEEEEGH! EEEEEGH! EEEEEGH!" comes the screech from the fishbowl on Timmy's nightstand. Timmy raises his head from his pillow and opens one eye wearily.

Of two goldfish in the fishbowl, the quiet one with pink eyes raises her fin, and then falls it right on the head of the loud fish with green eyes. "Cosmo! When I said, 'wake Timmy up,' I meant in a sensible way! Sorry Timmy." Wanda then poofed Timmy's small pink hat onto the top of his head.

"Wanda, Cosmo, do you know what day it is?" Timmy asked tiredly while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

Cosmo enthusiastically replied, "It's Leif Ericson day! Yay! The most Viking-est holiday EVER!"

Timmy screwed up his face and explained, "Uh… If I don't get presents or I don't get the day off from school, it's not a real holiday."

"Is it even a holiday today, Timmy?" Wanda asked.

"Nope. Actually, it's the day of the Sadie Hawkins dance, so I'll start the day off right!" Timmy said with one finger in the air.

Cosmo exclaimed, "With a bowl of prunes!"

Timmy and Wanda cringed in unison and made an "ew" noise.

"Well, hopefully with a shower," Wanda remarked. Timmy grinned and said, "Not a chance! I wish Trixie Tang would ask me to the dance and Tootie didn't!"

Wanda and Cosmo raised their wands and set to grant his wish, when their wands suddenly fell flaccid. "Let me guess, the rules?" asked Timmy.

The fairies poofed out of the fishbowl and into their real form, then poofed a magical copy of 'Da Rules' from thin air. Wanda said, "Sorry sport, the rules say we can't interfere with true love."

Timmy said, "You can't grant my wish because of Tootie?"

"Yeah, but we can grant the first part of the wish, you'll just have to find a way to keep away from Tootie until after Trixie asks you to the dance," Wanda replied. Timmy scratched his head in thought.

Timmy then said, "Okay… then, I wish Trixie Tang would ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and I wish that Trixie was the first person I saw after I leave the house!"

* * *

Timmy went and brushed his teeth in a lazy fashion and washed his hands and left the soap inside the sink. He went and ate breakfast with his mom and dad before they left for work. Finally, he packed his backpack and stepped outside the front door to go to the bus stop. The very moment the latch caught in the door frame, Trixie Tang appeared out of thin air. She stood on the walkway in front of Timmy's suburban home, combing her long, black hair in front of a mirror that no longer hung on a wall in front of her. Suddenly shocked by the absence of her reflection, she cried a shocked person's scream. "Where's my mirror! Hey! Where am I!" she exclaimed.

"Hi Trixie!" Timmy called out. "Is there something you want to ask me?"

Trixie stopped panicking over her mirror and her surroundings and looked over at Timmy and waved. "Oh, hi, Tommy!"

"It's Timmy," he corrected her.

"Whatever," she remarked, "Do you want to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me?"

"Okay!" Timmy replied quickly. Things are looking great today, thought Timmy.

"Where is my mirror?" thought Trixie, as she looked around blankly.

The bus pulled up to the stop in front of Timmy's house, the pneumatic brakes hissed as the bus stopped, and the door creaked open for Trixie and Timmy. Timmy proudly walked the steps onto the bus and took his seat next to Chester. Trixie climbed on board the bus, knowing where it was headed, but still slightly unaware of where she was. She, of course took her place in the popular part of the bus.

"Guess who's going to the dance with TRIXIE TANG!" Timmy commanded Chester and AJ while pointing at himself in an obvious fashion.

AJ replied, "Though you keep implying that you're going to the dance with Trixie, there is no way that you could ever qualify for such a situation. Refer to this chart that I conveniently take with me everywhere," then AJ pulled out a large chart with Timmy, Chester, and AJ icons on one side, and a Trixie Tang icon on the other, and a large red line labeled 'the cool barrier'. He continued, "We are hopelessly stuck on this side of 'the cool barrier' while Trixie has the freedom to traverse between her side and our side. However, Trixie would not cross over the barrier to our side because there is a reason that things from our side can't reach her on her side."

Chester asked, "What's the reason?"

AJ replied, "Because Timmy didn't shower today."

"HEY! Trixie did ask me to the dance and I can prove it!" Timmy exclaimed.

AJ and Chester were led by Timmy down the aisle to where the cool kids sat. He walked up to Trixie and asked her, "Did you ask me to the dance this morning?"

Just as she was about to answer with a stern, resounding 'NO', the magic of Timmy's wish washed over her brain and compelled her to instead answer, "Yes, I did."

At this revelation, everyone around Timmy, including Trixie, gasped, or worse, as was the case with Veronica, jumped up, shrieked, then fainted, falling forward into the aisle.

AJ clamored, "Don't you see what you've done, Timmy? You've destroyed the concept of 'the cool barrier'! You've made my chart irrelevant! You've destroyed logic! NOOOO!"

"I'll take it, then," said Chester, who then proceeded to play with the Timmy and Chester icons as if they were beating up the AJ icon.

AJ sat in the fetal position, rocking back and forth as his logical world fell to pieces around him. Chester was easily amused by the now defunct chart that AJ spent roughly five minutes making. Veronica lay sprawled, unconscious on the floor, her body slave to the random motions of the bus. Trixie, Tad, and Chad sat scratching their heads in confusion. And though panic and confusion were generally rampant on that school bus, Timmy stood there, oblivious, lost in his pride.

* * *

When the doors of the bus creaked open in front of Dimmsdale Elementary, Timmy, glowing with an enormous sense of accomplishment, was the first person off the bus, followed by Chester, who was still occupied by AJ's chart. The others followed very sluggishly, still dazed from the previous panic.

Timmy strutted proudly through the steel front doors of the school with a pink backpack on his shoulders and a green folder under his arm. Through the halls he walked without a single care in the world. His whole world was arranged in such a way that it could only please him. He was impervious to all things… until a call came from down the hallway that struck into him sobriety, like a comical lightning bolt that leaves you alive, but covered in burns.

"TIMMY!" came the cry from a short, ponytailed, ebon-haired girl carrying a half-dozen blue and white flowers. "OVER HERE, TIMMY!" cried Tootie again.

"Oh no! Tootie!" Timmy exclaimed in a newfound panic. "I've gotta hide!"

Timmy jumped into the nearest locker to him and slammed it shut, hoping that Tootie hadn't seen him. "I wonder whose locker this is," he said. "I wish I had a flashlight."

Wanda and Cosmo raised their wands and in Timmy's hand a flashlight magically appeared. He switched the flashlight on and was momentarily blinded. In an instant his eyes adjusted to the light and right in front of him was a collage of pictures of himself. At that very second he knew where he was. "Oh no! I'm in Tootie's locker! You guys have gotta help me!"

And right as his fairies were about to transport him to another locker, Tootie opened the door. "Hi Timmy," she giggled. "These are for you," she said and handed the flowers to Timmy.

"Uh… Thanks Tootie, but I have to go, now," he said hurriedly as he dropped the flowers and started out of the locker.

Tootie grabbed onto each side of the locker, blocking Timmy's path with her welcoming arms. "Will you go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me?" she asked with lovesick eyes laid squarely on Timmy's eyes, which he darted about to avoid eye contact.

"Trixie Tang already asked me and I told her I would go with her. Sorry," he apologized insincerely.

Tootie immediately frowned in sincere doubt. "No she didn't! SEE!" and she pulled out a chart identical to AJ's.

"Hey! Where did you get that chart?"

Tootie replied, "AJ was giving them out all last week!"

Timmy said, "Well, she did. I can prove it."

He then led Tootie over to Trixie, who was just walking into the building, still bewildered. Timmy met Trixie just inside the building and asked her, again, "Did you ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance this morning?"

Again magic brainwashed her into saying, "Yes. Yes, I did."

At that moment, everyone that was walking in from the bus mimed a heart attack and fell over backward. Tootie, dumbfounded, took the chart AJ had given her and threw it away.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she said, sniffling, "Okay then, I guess I'll just go with… someone else… I guess…"

Upon seeing Tootie suddenly heartbroken, a weird feeling fell on Timmy's conscience, a bad, weird feeling. "Oh no, guilt. Wanda, Cosmo, can't you do something about it just this once?" he pleaded.

Wanda replied, "Sorry sweetie, you'll either have to live with it or do something to make it up to Tootie."

Cosmo chimed in, "Or you could go to Mexico! Then you won't have to go to the dance!"

Timmy and Wanda both rolled their eyes.

* * *

Guilt and desire wrestled each other in Timmy's mind. Guilt kicked Desire in the shin, but Desire came back with a punch in Guilt's gut. Reeling back, Guilt reached blindly for anything to hold onto. It found a baseball bat, then gripped it firmly and struck Desire in the side of the skull. Desire was down and out, and Guilt stood on its body in triumph.

* * *

Timmy's eyes twitched with anxiety and he confessed, "Oh… I can't live with the guilt anymore. It's like I have no desire now to go to the dance with Trixie. Gosh, what's wrong with me?"

"Just say the magic words, sport," Wanda suggested.

"I wish that Trixie forgot that she ever asked me to the dance," Timmy wished.

A moment later, the magic that had fogged her logic suddenly cleared away and she was free to ask anyone to the dance.

Tootie was about to walk into her class with tear-streaked cheeks, when Timmy grabbed her by the shoulder and stopped her. She turned around and, surprised, wiped the tears from her face.

"Timmy… Uh, what do you want?" she said trying her hardest to sound angry, though she was brimming with happy optimism.

"I, uh, screwed up Tootie. I…" Timmy struggled, "I will go to dance with you. Ugh."

Tootie could no longer withhold her enthusiasm. She screamed, joyously, "OH TIMMY! I knew you would! AAAAAIIIIEEEE!"

She wrapped her arms around Timmy and began showering him with love and kisses. Timmy tried his hardest to push her away but he was powerless compared to the love she showed for him.

Inside Timmy there was a deep, clichéd regret, but somewhere deeper, there lay an uneasy feeling that everything was truly as it should be. The rest of the school day was oddly different, as though something good had happened, though Timmy thought surely this was not the case.


	2. Dance of Death

Here is chapter 2 in all its splendor. as this chapter goes on, you may notice a transition in style from the last chapter. if i did it right, it's a very gradual transition, except for the end, which was supposed to very sudden. and if you're asking, the gradual transition is there to accomodate the ending transition. if you're not asking, good for you.

* * *

The shadows cast by the sun fell at an angle as little Timmy Turner stepped off the school bus and returned home from yet another mediocre school day. However, this was not a great mediocre day, instead it was a rather poor mediocre day. First of all, there was a dance that he had to go to, with Tootie. Worse, though, was the fact that he willingly gave up going to the dance with Trixie Tang so that he could go with Tootie. Worst of all, something inside him told him that this was the right thing to do. 

As he walked in through the front door, he was greeted by the worst shock he had all day: Tootie was talking to his parents!

"HEY! What are you doing here!" he screamed.

His mom answered, "Oh, hi, Timmy! Your new girlfriend was telling us about the dance tonight and how you agreed to go with her after dumping the most popular girl in school. How romantic." After finishing that sentence, Mom, Tootie, and Wanda let out a dreamy sigh.

Timmy now was frustrated almost to anger. "I-," he began before he was interrupted by his father.

"Now, now Timmy. We've taken care of everything, including picking Tootie up from her house, chaperoning, and even our goofy adult formal wear!" Upon finishing, Mr. Turner pulled an orange leisure suit from behind his back and Mrs. Turner pulled a bright purple gown from behind her back.

Timmy opened his mouth to say something again, but once more was interrupted.

"Do you want to stay and watch us practice our goofy adult dance moves?" Mr. Turner asked Tootie.

"That's okay Mr. Turner, I've got to get home now and get ready for tonight," She replied. She looked at Timmy, giggled, and said, "I'll see you tonight. Bye Timmy."

Tootie kissed Timmy on the cheek, which he quickly wiped with his forearm. As she left, the sun glinted off her jet-black ponytails and gave her an implied halo, and the world went into slow motion. Emotion washed over Timmy and, in order to hide it, he pressed his eyebrows together and lowered them as far as he could and disfigured his mouth and cheeks. Eventually the door closed behind Tootie and Timmy's world returned to normal speed.

"Look, Timmy! We're doing a goofy adult dance!"

* * *

Timmy lay on his bed in his room staring at the wall, oblivious to the mountain of homework behind him and the setting sun shining through the window in front of him. He stared at the wall because the wall only had its own existence to manage, a feat less complex than the one laid out for Timmy. He had to manage all the thousands of mixed, redundant, and contradicting feelings that flew in and out of his mind every minute. His mind struggled to keep up with every raw emotion and keep these raw emotions from spilling out of his mouth. 

Eventually the emotional traffic hit a metaphorical brick wall as Timmy's brain took a sudden vacation. However, this was more recognizable in reality as a low, "Mlaah," sound coming from his mouth.

"Hey! I can make that sound! Mlaah!" Cosmo put on a retarded face and kept bleating 'mlaah'.

"What's wrong sweetie?" Wanda asked, ignoring Cosmo.

Timmy sat up and turned around toward his fairies.

"I don't know how to feel or what to say. I don't like Tootie, but today when she was leaving, it was hard to watch her leave. Even at school I felt different than I normally do. It's a weird feeling and I don't like it," Timmy confided to his fairies.

"You could wish away your feelings again," Cosmo suggested.

Timmy said, "We already know that's a bad idea from the last time."

"Why? What happened last time?" asked Cosmo.

"So what are you going to do?" asked Wanda.

Timmy tried hard to think, but his brain was still on vacation and made no plans to make it back home.

"I guess I'll have to go to the dance with Tootie. It's easier than trying to think right now."

* * *

Timmy showered mindlessly and mindlessly made his way back to his room. 

"Turn around you guys, I don't want you to see me nude," Timmy said.

Cosmo replied, "What me? Don't worry, I'm just a goldfish!"

"Just do it," Wanda commanded Cosmo.

Timmy dropped the towel from his hips and reached for the black slacks hanging from the footboard of his bed.

"Timmy! Ti- Oops!" Tootie had burst into his room as he was completely naked. She looked away just as she saw him, but she had seen enough to go running back down the hall in a fit of giggles.

"Embarrassment, I wasn't feeling that earlier but, hey, why not?" Timmy said with a crimson face.

Timmy, fully dressed in suit and tie, walked down the stairs into the living room where his parents and his date were waiting for him. Dad was wearing his humiliatingly orange leisure suit, and Mom was wearing her bright purple gown. But what really took his gaze away from his parents' respective eyesores was the light blue gown that Tootie wore.

Breathtaking as she was, and he was surprised at himself for thinking it, he had to clear up one issue. "What are you doing here so early?" Timmy asked.

"I couldn't wait so I had to come early. Sorry, Timmy," she answered with a blush and a smile.

Mr. Turner added, "And by coming over here, she saved me from putting 3/8 of a mile on my car!"

Mrs. Turner then said, "Speaking of cars, everyone, get in the car."

Mr. and Mrs. Turner climbed into the front two seats of the car and left Timmy and Tootie to sit in the back seat together. Everyone buckled their seatbelts and they were off to a dance.

Every few seconds, Tootie would scoot over a few inches closer to Timmy. Timmy would scoot over, away from Tootie every few seconds, until he was pressed up against the door.

The car stopped at a red light, which provided an opportunity for Tootie to take off her seatbelt and get up and crawl over to Timmy. Timmy saw her coming toward him and he took off his seatbelt and stood up on his seat, ready to dodge Tootie's advances.

The light turned green and the car started moving forward and Tootie still advanced toward Timmy. Just as Tootie was about to jump onto Timmy, she saw a pair of headlights flying toward the car.

In that instant, the pair of headlights ran the red light and t-boned the Turner car with enough force to stick the two cars together as they careened fifty feet into an adjacent field of grass.

In less than five minutes, three ambulances, four cops, and a fire truck were on the scene. In five more minutes, Tootie's parents were weeping on each other's shoulders, Timmy's parents were well on their way to the hospital, and there was a white sheet over the windshield of the offending car and a white sheet over the back door of the Turner family car.


	3. Dancing into Eternity

**Author's note: **I hate to be the responsible author and admit it, but that last chapter wasn't all that great, due to reasons that should never see the light of day. I hope you'll grant forgiveness for that and in advance, now that this chapter is up.

I write on a very very regular basis (about three or four times a day), but writing heavy dialogue, the likes of which this chapter has, is pretty foreign to me. Therefore, the dialogue will seem a little like it was cranked out of a Chinese sweatshop. But i really think i nailed the ending.

* * *

The sound of grinding, smashing metal assaulted the ears. Shattered glass and disfigured metal tore at skin and muscle. The taste of blood filled mouths. Blood filled nasal and sinus cavities. All these effective senses soon faded away into oblivion. 

Sight, however, remained. Actually, it was more as though sight returned. At the moment of collision, Timmy and Tootie were blinded by the all too sudden impact. Neither of them saw a thing in the next minute fraction of a second. Their sight returned as, first, a bluish glow, fading into yellow, then red, and finally white.

This white was not just a flat glow, like the other colors, this color had depth. Timmy's eyes came into focus and the picture he was seeing was a plain, white room. The room had four walls, which were white, and a ceiling and a floor, which were also white. The only things that weren't white in the room were Timmy, Tootie, a darkened window, and a silver hand rail in front of the window.

Timmy pressed against the floor and found it to be firm, but soft to the touch. He got up and walked over to the window and tried to look out. The darkness behind the mirror absorbed all the light that came it's way, save for a faint reflection allowed by the glass. In the reflection, he saw Tootie and himself, completely unharmed. Timmy examined his reflection in disbelief while Tootie looked herself over, also in disbelief.

"Hi Timmy," said Wanda as her and Cosmo's reflections appeared in the window.

Timmy spun around, hard and fast, and his eyes became as wide as coasters. In that room, floating before Timmy and Tootie both, were Cosmo and Wanda in a significant splendor.

"Aagh! Hide! Tootie will see you!" Timmy shrieked.

"It's okay, Timmy," Wanda reassured him. "Tootie can see us and we won't go away because… um, well…"

Wanda was interrupted by Jorgen von Strangle, who had poofed into the room suddenly.

"Little Timmy Turner! Due to your extenuating circumstances, it has been decided that you will keep your fairy godparents in perpetuity!" Jorgen decreed as he waved around his enormous wand. Upon finishing, he promptly poofed back from where he came.

"What was that all about! What's going on!" Timmy demanded.

Wanda sighed, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but… You're dead, you and Tootie."

Timmy shrieked in fright and Tootie fainted and fell forward onto the floor.

"Please, please, PLEASE tell me you're kidding. Tell me this is some sort of joke," Timmy pleaded, half-knowing of the answer. He looked into Wanda's eyes, which just showed the smallest tear in an otherwise stone face. He then looked to Cosmo's face and only saw emotion welling up in his eyes as he bit his lip. Tears then began to fill Timmy's eyes as realized that this was reality. "But… how? We were just on the way to the dance," Timmy sobbed.

Cosmo still bit his lip and Wanda explained, "While you had your back turned to the window and Tootie was about to pounce on you, a drunk driver ran a red light and collided into your car. Your back was pressed against where his left front fender hit your car. Tootie was looking out of the window and saw the headlights coming, she saw everything just before the impact. Then she was blinded by the impact."

"Well, then… Where am I?" Timmy asked.

"This room is aptly named the 'Shocking Room'. Normally, instead of someone, like me, answering your questions, you would find out through that window over there," Wanda said.

Again Timmy questioned, "What will I see through that window?"

"I can't tell you; you'll have to see for yourself in a few minutes."

"Tootie can see you and know you're there and you won't go away?"

"When a fairy's godchild dies, they get to stay with them forever and nothing can take them away from each other. I guess it's sort of a perk, in a dark way," explained Wanda.

"Well, why am I here with Tootie and not my parents?"

Wanda answered, "Your parents weren't killed in the wreck. They were hurt pretty badly, but they survived. They were the only ones that survived."

"Why Tootie though?"

"Think about it, Timmy. You two shared each other's death."

"That guy in the car that hit ours died, how come he's not here with us?"

"He didn't die with you; he was the one that killed you. You and her have shared more than each other's death, though. Almost every valentine's day, you spend with her. Most of the time you've spent with her, you've enjoyed, even if you won't admit it. You've even shared us, your fairy godparents, with her. You see, you two are closer to each other than you are to your parents, as bad as that sounds."

"Timmy? What are those?" Tootie had recovered and she was now staring short, green and pink haired people with wings, floating in the room.

Wanda introduced herself and her relation to Timmy. Cosmo spoke up and introduced himself in a voice broken with overwhelming emotion. Wanda explained everything to Tootie that she had told Timmy while Cosmo floated silently by Wanda's side.

The whole time, Timmy stared at his fairies and could see something different about them, but he was unsure as to what it was that was different. Perhaps, nothing had changed about them. Then again, Cosmo was being oddly quiet.

"Cosmo, why won't you say anything at all?" Timmy asked.

Wanda answered, "Oh… I forgot to tell you. On earth or in Fairy World, we have to conform to a certain set of rules that limit our powers."

"Are you talking about the rules for making wishes?" asked Timmy.

"No, sweetie. These rules don't control things that insignificant. These rules govern all of reality and existence. Anyway, when we pass with you into the, uh… afterlife, we are bound by a completely different set of rules. The new rules warp and disfigure our old perspective, making things very frightening at first. Cosmo's just taking longer to adjust to the new rules. Soon enough you will have to cross over and experience what we did, but it will take longer for you to adjust."

The lights in the room then dimmed to about half its original brightness. As the lights dimmed, the window in the room began to lighten up.

Wanda told Timmy and Tootie, "You two better go to the window."

Timmy and Tootie did as they were told. Timmy leaned over the handrail and pressed his forehead against the window while Tootie was content to just onto the handrail.

"Stop that, Timmy," Wanda scolded.

"Why?" asked Timmy as he fell back onto his feet and off the glass.

"Because it's rude to smear the window."

The window slowly turned from a dark grey to light grey then slowly brightened to a sheer white glow. After a few seconds, the window formed a picture that gave more depth to the 'Shocking Room's' name. The picture that formed was that of a cemetery in the late afternoon. Timmy and Tootie both knew where this was going. 

The image panned left to a crowd of people that Timmy and Tootie recognized as their family and friends. In the crowd stood AJ, Chester, Sanjay, Elmer, Timmy's parents (though they were in wheelchairs and traction), Tootie's parents, Vicky, and a few other classmates and relatives. Timmy's friends all had tears crawling down their cheeks. Timmy and Tootie's parents were stricken with so much grief and sadness, they were paralyzed.

Vicky was the only one who wasn't stricken with tears of grief. No, she was stricken with boredom and it was more obvious than the red hair on her head. Timmy was absolutely offended. He then looked over at Tootie; her lower lip twitched involuntarily.

Tootie was beyond hurt. Vicky was her sister and, though they didn't like each other, she could have at least shown the most rudimentary courtesy and tried to not look bored. Anger tempered Timmy's heart. At the same time, the shards of Tootie's heart sank into the pit of her stomach.

Before Timmy had a chance to explode from his rage, he and Tootie were fed a sobering image: a priest standing before a pair of wooden caskets and granite headstones.

The minutes that followed seemed to have lasted hours, as Timmy and Tootie watched the priest commit their bodies to the earth.

The window faded slowly back into dimensionless darkness and the room lit up to its original brightness. Timmy and Tootie could not let go of the handrail. As compelled as they were to do so, they just couldn't. Their brains were cranking at full capacity as they tried to sort out what they had just seen.

In a few minutes, Tootie was first to speak. "Why did we have to see that? That was horrible."

Wanda replied, "I'm sorry, but it had to be done. The 'Shocking Room' isn't about showing you shocking images, though it does do a great deal of that. No, the 'Shocking Room' is here to make you understand that you are no longer part of that world. You have passed on and your bodies are no longer needed. When you're ready, you will need to go through that door," and she pointed at a plain white door that hadn't been there before.

* * *

Timmy and Tootie sat down and, having processed what Wanda told them, they tried to predict what lay ahead of them in the door. Perhaps, there was nothing behind the door and when they walked through it, they would disappear from existence forever. Maybe there were alternate realities that they had to travel in search of something. Or maybe it didn't open at all because it was a sadistic joke constructed in the absence of something better to do by someone with enormous amounts of free time. On the other side of the door, the vast ethereal plains of heaven may spread out before them. 

Only one thing was certain though: they wouldn't know unless they went through the door.

So, Tootie and Timmy stood up, walked to the door, summoned up all the courage they could, and Timmy turned the plain, white doorknob. When the knob wouldn't turn anymore, he tugged lightly on it and it cracked open.

A momentary flash of light came from behind the door and in a moment the room was empty save for a window and a silver handrail, waiting for the next unlucky souls to be freed of their earthly bodies.


	4. The Marathon Dance

There was the flash and then no more. Timmy and Tootie ceased to exist, and they were now the incredible energy of the universe, on a plane detached from our own.

Yet something was not right. The ethereal equivalent of an "empty feeling", the feeling you get when you've forgotten something, existed in the same state as this energy. It destabilized amplitudes. It compressed frequencies. It unsettled the balance between forces and slowly caused a reversion to previous states, previous points on a time line.

This continued as equilibrium was slowly achieved and finally stopped as the sun rose on a quiet Dimmsdale. A young Timmy waited for a yellow bus to ferry him off to kindergarten. Just down the street, a young Tootie did likewise. And they both did so in a youthful stupor, veiled from the complexities of a fairly odd world.

All our lives are a dance. For all it's grace and beauty, it is marked with grief and strife. And as a final marathon insult, the last step in the dance of life happens to be the step you started on.

* * *

It's been years since I should have finished this. My bad. It's short. I know. And it's probably not very good. But this is kind of the idea I wanted to convey several years ago when I started this story. And between writing the third chapter and this one, I had time to join the air force and go to the desert. So I was busy for a while.

Anyway, I wanted to tack on an ending to this story before I go writing (and never finishing) another story. I don't mean tack on in a negative way, but I didn't devote too much effort to fleshing out the idea I had in my mind. Too much other stuff going on. I'm actually breaking my crew rest for this. But there you go.


	5. alternate ending

This chapter is just an alternate ending. it was hard deciding which ending to choose, and this one lost. well here you go.

* * *

Timmy and Tootie hadn't really disappeared; rather, they were never there. Their bodies, the room, and the light were all just vagaries of perception, facilitated by minds stuck in the bounds of mortal memories. 

The blinding light coming from behind the door was a visual metaphor for the crippling new perspective that ripped Timmy and Tootie from their previous existence. Instantly, the universe expanded beneath them, so much that they could make out scattered, vibrating strands of energy clearly, yet not so much that any part of the universe was obscured. The past, present, and future came into full view and all things were made known to the two children.

* * *

When a person is exposed to the exact same information that everyone else is, they become everyone else. To prevent this from happening, everyone who has died is allowed something greater all the mass and energy in the universe: their memories, their personality, their identity. 

Though Timmy and Tootie were now supernatural entities beyond the reach of physics that possessed infinite knowledge, they were still just Timmy and Tootie.

* * *

The adjustment period Wanda described to them went by like a breeze but only because they were slaves no more to the slow march of time, and time to them was whatever they wished. 

Floating around as something that is literally not there can be troublesome, even to those who have total control over it. So, most alter their infinitely wide perceptions to give themselves a tangible body. This is what Timmy and Tootie did, simply because of the above mentioned reason.

They assumed their ten-year-old bodies and materialized themselves a room similar to the 'Shocking Room,' but it was furnished, and instead of darkness, a breathtaking view of the various galaxies filled the window. The two were no longer shocked and rather enjoyed each other's company. Words didn't need to be exchanged. They could feel what each other was thinking.

And though they were enjoying this afterlife, Timmy sensed uneasiness within Tootie. Tootie knew this feeling all her life. She had felt it ever since she could remember. And even in the afterlife, where worries and troubles are supposed to be a thing of the living, she felt it and Timmy was unsettled by it.

Tootie always wondered why her own sister didn't love her. She had never done anything to offend or impose and she always tried to show sibling affection but Vicky was still cruel, heartless, and self-centered. What could have possibly happened to Vicky that made her so loathsome of others? She pondered this into oblivion, at which point, she ceased to care, and accepted, no, adopted her sister's introverted-ness as a fact of her own life. Yet, all the while, there would be just a sliver of her being that yearned for an answer.

"Why…" Tootie vocalized to Timmy, who knew full well the rest of the question, but not of the answer. The frown she wore as she stared at her feet made Timmy feel almost as miserable as she did.

Timmy sympathized for Tootie and wondered if there was a way he could help, when he thought of his fairy godparents. He wondered where they were. In an infinitely short amount of time, Wanda and Cosmo appeared magically before them. Timmy looked at them and they knew exactly what he wanted.

Wanda was about to speak, but Cosmo beat her to the punch. He said, "Sorry, Timmy. That's the sort of thing that only you can change."

Anticipating Timmy's next question, Wanda answered, "We can't turn back the clock because we were always immortal so time remains the same for us. You can alter your own reality Timmy. You can change it."

Timmy closed his eyes and strained to change it. When he opened his eyes, he was standing at the bus stop, waiting for it to take him to his very first day at Dimmsdale Elementary, not knowing what wait for him in his life.

Tootie also waited for the bus to take her to her first day at Dimmsdale Elementary, when a fairly odd feeling compelled her to look down the street. She turned her sad little eyes toward a boy in a pink hat and somehow felt endeared. Little did they both know that they would spend the rest of their short lives together.

* * *

Nothing is infinite in this universe. 

All livings things exist in their own dimension, resulting in trillions of dimensions overlapping each other and interacting with each other. Each of these dimensions has its own timeline, and just as there are only finite amounts of mass and energy, there is a finite amount of time for a timeline to occupy. In some weird coincidence, all things choose to return to the beginning of their timeline and it is repeated. It's as if the universe was designed so that things always have a reason to turn back the clock on time.

This is a finite universe, but for the sake of self-preservation, it repeats itself, that way it boasts an end and yet is never gone. Our universe is a dance whose final step is the one on which it begins.


End file.
